County cut corners in shelter hit by hurricane

Published Monday, December 06, 2004

ARCADIA (AP) -- A DeSoto County public shelter that collapsed during Hurricane Charley while housing 1,400 people was constructed following minimum or subpar building standards, a newspaper investigation found.

The 2-year-old Turner Agri-Civic Center was supposed to withstand winds of at least 140 mph. Instead, the metal roof lifted off the building and its east wall toppled over under what experts estimate were 89 to 110 mph winds. In one case, a lowered building standard saved $260,000 on the $8 million project. But the county spent extra money for custom accent paint colors, to install bronze plaques and to buy a better flagpole, The News-Press of Fort Myers reported in Sunday's editions. The paper found the county:

Used a low-bid contractor, Trident Building Systems Inc., a company that lacked certification that would have allowed experts to inspect the design and provide quality control.

Failed to upgrade construction materials or use the latest in disaster-resistant design.

Can't locate key engineering documents to prove that the building's design and materials should have held up under hurricane-force winds.

"We put Trident through a very intensive investigation," said David Titsch, president of building architect Titsch & Associates, Architects. "We wouldn't have let them build the building if we weren't satisfied."